


We Create Our Own Demons

by m_supercomputer



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Character Study, Gen, Not A Fix-It, Post-Endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 03:56:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18612634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_supercomputer/pseuds/m_supercomputer
Summary: Steve Rogers, after.





	We Create Our Own Demons

**Author's Note:**

> I was...not crazy about that ending for Steve, so I had to make sense of it to myself.

As soon as the funeral ends, he knows what he has to do.

He pictures his own future, and he can't stand it. Going back to the fight, forever; no Nat by his side with her no-nonsense support, her sneaky warmth and willingness to stand up to him. No Tony to come up with the perfect solution when it seems impossible, the feeling of safety he gave him to know everything wouldn't be on Steve alone, his prickly kindness.

He loves Bucky and Sam, of course he does. He's so grateful to have them back. But Bucky isn't able to be the person who had been Steve's best friend anymore - sadder, quieter, more uncertain, more willing to unquestioningly follow his lead. And Sam's steady loyalty has been his rock for so long, but he's always known Sam could only see the best of him, and he doesn't feel worthy of that.

Because most of all, he can't imagine watching Morgan grow up without her father and know it was his fault. He hadn't been there for Tony, he couldn't stop Thanos, and in the end he'd had to watch helplessly as he died. Nothing could pay back that debt, and if he tries he thinks it might finally break him.

But he knows someplace he can go to be the man he was before all the mistakes, somewhere he can be happy. To Peggy.

\----------------------------------------

Being with her is a dream. At first. He's so glad to finally be able to hold her in his arms, to have a home of his own with a partner.

But one day, as she's talking with frustration about her troubles at work, he starts to tell her about Hydra and SHIELD - and  
stops. He promised Tony that nothing he did with time travel would endanger Morgan's future, and after everything he knows he could never break that promise.

At that he feels a creeping dread as he realizes: he's never going to be able to change *anything.* Bucky's torture. Howard's murder. Hydra using SHIELD, Peggy's baby, to spread misery. Natasha being taken from her family and being forced into becoming an assassin. Wanda losing her brother. So many mistakes, and he'll have to watch it all happen again.

He'd once defined himself as a man who had to stand up when others were in need, and now he finds himself living a life where he'll never be able to do that again. But he loves Peggy, and he's already changed her own fate by keeping her from meeting the man she would've married, so he can't bear the thought of leaving her alone.

In trying to change his fate, he may have created his own hell.


End file.
